


Ducks in a Row

by LaVieEnRose



Series: The One Where Justin Loses His Hearing [54]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Deaf Character, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Memory Loss, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 07:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16013024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVieEnRose/pseuds/LaVieEnRose
Summary: “Look,” I said. “You don't run in and play hearing savior to the Deaf kids. Trust me.Trustme. I have screwed this up more times than I can count. No matter how much you think this time is different, no matter how much it feels like an exception, you do not rescue the Deaf kids.”“But—”“Do not rescue the Deaf kids.”She stared at me.“Do not,” I said, “rescue the Deaf kids.”





	Ducks in a Row

So I guess the first of our little stories happened sometime in early December of 2010, when Justin was having one of the few decent days he did during that period. I suggested we invite Gabriel over so he didn't forget what Justin looked like, since between the pancreatitis and the seizures and now this fun bout of depression he'd been a little off the grid for going on a month. Plus Gabriel's a better cook than Justin and I was hungry.

He came over with arms full of groceries and immediately put Justin to work, and I applauded myself on my brilliant plan and sat on the counter and flipped through the mail and prepared to be served a meal by my husband and his boyfriend. I'd known monogamous people were missing out for as long as I'd known there was an alternative, but finally I had concrete proof. Before long the kitchen smelled like teriyaki and lime.

 **I can take everything these kids can throw at me,** Gabriel was saying, checking the temperature on the stove. **I've been doing this for ten years, there's nothing I haven't seen. I've seen actual gang fights break out over who has more of those rubber band bracelets than another kid.**

Justin laughed, pulling the bones out of a chicken thigh.

 **When I was a kid it was Swatch watches,** I said. 

Gabriel nodded. **Me too, I caught a little of that.** He pointed at Justin. **What about him?**

I said, **I don't know, Pokemon cards or something.**

 ** _Molly_ was Pokemon cards,** Justin said. **How old do you think I am?**

 **I've never known,** I said, and Justin wrinkled his nose.

 **So with the kids, I'm fine,** Gabriel continued. **But then we get to parent teacher conferences and I want to throw it all in and become...I don't know. A fisherman.**

 **I don't like fish,** Justin said. **I don't like their eyes.**

Gabriel ignored him, because after four months he was getting used to managing the kind of bullshit that spills out of Justin's hands. **You'd think that people who send their kids to a Deaf school would be less skeptical about their kids having a Deaf teacher, but I swear to God, half these parents...** He shook his head. **God, I hate hearing people. No offense,** he said to me.

Justin said, **It's fine, he hates hearing people too.**

 **That's true,** I said. **Though I probably also hate most Deaf people. I just don't know that many. I like you. I guess Justin's okay.**

 **Yeah, he'll do.** Gabriel kissed his cheek, and Justin grinned and blushed and I bit my lip to keep from smiling. Seriously, I got to sit here and watch Justin be happy without having to fucking do anything? Why doesn't everyone do this?

We sat down for some fucking incredible stir fry and the conversation shifted to Justin's show, which was coming up soon and wasn't a completely stressful experience yet because his agent hadn't vetoed those paintings, so he thought it was done. That lasted us through most of the meal, and I was already clearing plates when Gabriel brought up this hole in the wall gallery he'd stumbled on the other day. Justin was enthralled and said he'd go by the next day after work, and Gabriel started talking about this one painting Justin couldn't miss. **It's down the east hallway,** he said.

Justin said, **Can you write it down?**

**It's easy. And then it's the second door...maybe the third, and there's another hall and it's at the end of that, and then on the left wall near the top.**

Justin looked at me with something somewhere between amusement and panic, and I rolled my eyes and went to my desk. I plunked a piece of paper and a pencil in front of Gabe. **Write it down.**

Gabriel shrugged a little and started drawing a map, and I said to Justin, behind Gabriel's head, **Just tell him.**

Justin chewed on the inside of his cheek.

**He doesn't need the details, but someday he's going to need you to remember something and you're going to get both of you killed.**

Justin sighed and waited for Gabriel to look up. **My short-term memory isn't the best,** he said. **So stuff like this gets kind of lost.**

Gabriel was all teacher about it. **What kinds of things are hard?**

 **It's not a big deal,** Justin said. **Really it's...nothing.**

I said, **No, it's not nothing,** and sat back down at the table. **Want to completely break his brain?**

Justin swatted at me. **I am not a circus act.**

**Sure you are. Gabriel, tell him a phone number.**

Justin groaned and flopped back in his chair.

Gabriel looked between the two of us. **I don't know...**

I said, **No, come on, you won't hurt him. Find a number, sign it fast.** I reached over and nudged Justin's temple. **Is your head going to explode?** Justin snapped his teeth but smiled at me.

Gabriel still looked nervous, but he took out his phone, scrolled through, and signed a phone number to Justin. Justin blinked and did a good job of covering for that computer malfunction sort of look he gets in his eyes, but I know it well.

 **Did you get it?** I asked him, reaching back to play with the hair on the back of his neck.

He glared at me, but in that way where he's trying not to smile. **Yes.**

**Okay, so what was the first number?**

He breathed out all angry through his nose, and I laughed. **There was a four,** he said.

**Yes dear, somewhere in those ten numbers, there's a four, but I asked for the first number.**

**You're a jerk and I hate you,** he said, and I shrugged nonchalantly, but the truth is this was the easiest way to do this. Show it at its worst but play it off like a joke. Get it all over with in one fell swoop, while I showed Gabriel it was nothing to take too seriously.

 **Come on, you can do it,** I said. **Starts with a f...**

 **Well, you already said it's not a four,** he said. 

**And you remembered! It's a miracle!**

He balled up his napkin and threw it at me. 

I caught it. **Second number?**

**You proved your point, okay?**

I got up and kissed the top of his head on my way to the kitchen. **You earned ice cream.**

**Oh yeah?**

**You remembered that five...sort of.** I dug through the fridge and found an old carton of the full-fat shit Justin keeps buying even though I threaten him every time and scooped some out for each of them while I watched them over the counter.

 **So what do you at work?** Gabe said. **People must always be telling you numbers.**

 **Most stuff gets written down anyway, since they're all hearing,** Justin says. **I record the interpreted calls so I can watch them as many times as I need. And I make up songs or whatever.**

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. **Songs?**

**Yeah, sure. To help me remember stuff.**

I set the bowls on the table. **He has ways,** I said. **He always makes it work.** I slid Gabriel's bowl in front of him and caught his eye. **Just give him one thing a time,** I signed, small. **He's a genius. Don't overthink it.**

Justin licked both sides of his spoon and pretended he didn't see.

 **Thank you,** he said to me later, when we were brushing our teeth.

**Gross, for what?**

He spit. **Helping me earlier, with Gabriel.**

**I wasn't helping you, I was helping him. You're very exhausting, you know. I don't want him falling asleep at work because he's all worried about you and then his five-year-olds revolt or something.**

**Fifth grade. Not five year olds.**

**Whatever. The police would want to talk to us, it would be a whole thing...I don't have time for that. I'm a busy man. I already spend so much fucking time waiting for you remember phone numbers.**

**This is really convincing.**

**It should be.** I said. **Or you know, if it's not the kids revolting, it'll be him interrupting you when you're concentrating and you'll do that thing where your head spins around like—**

**Linda Blair.**

**—very good, and you'll I don't know, breathe fire at him, knowing you. And he's already had enough fire-related trauma for one lifetime.**

**That is true.**

**See?** I said. **It takes two people to handle you. He can't do this alone. If anyone knows that it's me.**

“Poor you.” He stood on his toes and kissed me, and I held him up when he tried to put his heels down. He smiled, running his fingernails up and down the back of my neck. “You want this thing to work,” he said. “With me and Gabe.”

I kissed him and set him back down. 

**You love me a whole lot,** Justin said.

**That doesn't sound like me.**

“Even so.”

**Strange.**

**It's because I'm fantastic. And you like Deaf people.**

I laughed and squeezed him. **God, you drive me crazy.**

**I stand here through all of that bullshit, and I'm the one driving you crazy?**

I **I guess that shows how naturally more annoying you are than me.**

He said, **I guess so. Want me to fuck you?**

**Oh, you're just going to slip that in there?**

“Mmmhmm.” He kissed me. **In more ways than one.**

**

All right, so zoom us forward four or five months, past the early spring, the eye thing and Justin's aborted birthday, our few weeks of weirdness, and Italy about a half second after that was over. After the fucking non-stop sprint of shit we'd endured from November until April, we actually got a miraculous few months of calm. Marie acquired a new gallery in the East Village, and Justin was working most days down there helping them get it settled, so he was being challenged at work again after feeling really stagnant for a while (more on that later). His show in December had been a wild success—you should have seen the article on him—so he was painting every spare minute, and his agent had to put a limit on the number of commissions she'd let him accept because she was worried about him getting overexposed. He and Gabriel were good, he and I were good, and this was before the whole California saga and all the good and the bad that came with that—again, more on that later—so we were all complacent and shit. 

Cynthia was officially no longer my assistant, which was great for her and deeply tragic for me, and Emily had decided she'd try out being both our assistants, under the logic that she'd basically been doing that already anyway, and...fair enough, so we were giving that a shot. She'd started dating Gwen—you'll see plenty of her—who could actually keep up with her. Derek was sending us all postcards and was going to be home at the beginning of June, Justin caught a cold at the start of May that hit him pretty hard but other than that was feeling well, I nabbed four new clients and Cynthia and Isabel each got three, all the crap Marcus had put us through was a blip in the rearview, I turned forty and didn't swan dive off the Chrysler building...in general, shit was as good as it gets around here, and, well. Not to get too sappy about it, but nowadays that's not faint praise. Listen, if you're goddamn forty with a twenty-eight year old partner, particularly one who looks and laughs and fucks like Justin Taylor, you don't have much to complain about. 

So everything was clipping along nicely. I was in the office one afternoon in late May, brainstorming campaigns and messing with a fidget toy and buying some random shit for Justin because I like him and I like shopping. Cynthia came in all conspiratorially, and I raised an eyebrow.

“Can you take a look at this?” she said. 

It was an invoice, nothing out of the ordinary. “This is fine and you know it. What do you really want?”

She bit her lip. “Emily's on the phone with Justin.”

“Personal calls during work? The nerve. You want a new assistant? You should get a new assistant. I'll take her off your hands.” 

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “They're talking about that volunteer thing they're doing. The one she's been so excited about.”

“I'm familiar.” After the whole incident with Justin's eyes, I guess he'd felt guilty for being completely fucking miserable in a situation some people have to live in all the time, because Justin's finest skill is feeling guilty for shit he has no business feeling guilty about. He and Emily decided they wanted to do some work for Deaf blind people and learn to interpret for them, which sounded pretty damn cool, but it's annoying what a good person Justin is because it just keeps making me look worse and worse. That's why I have to keep buying him shit. Gotta keep whatever upper hand I have left.

“Did Justin tell you there's a problem with it? They were talking about it...I don't know, my signing's not that great, but it looked like she was saying the agency won't work with them, and they were strategizing about it.”

I stopped twirling my pen. “Why the fuck wouldn't they work with them?”

“Emily was saying something about getting them to change their policy. I guess they don't train Deaf interpreters.”

I sighed and put my feet up on my desk. “An agency that works for the Deaf blind being discriminatory. Isn't that just the way of the fucking world.”

“Justin hasn't said anything to you about it?”

“Nope. Last I heard they were looking into it.”

“Okay...so what are we going to do?”

I laughed. “What do you mean, what are we going to do?”

“You love Justin, I love Emily.”

I waited.

“Aaaand you love Emily, and I love Justin...”

“Cynthia.”

“Yes.”

“Your point?”

“You're protective of them, you can't fool me. And they're being discriminated against! You said it yourself.”

“Yeah, they are. It sucks.”

“So if they're not going to listen to Deaf people, we need to go down there and...you know. Issue them some lawyery stuff.”

“You're a lawyer now?”

“I make a fantastic fake lawyer.”

I picked some lint off my sleeve. “Did Emily ask you for help?”

“No, but—”

“Did Justin?”

“Brian.”

“Look,” I said. “You don't run in and play hearing savior to the Deaf kids. Trust me. _Trust_ me. I have screwed this up more times than I can count. No matter how much you think this time is different, no matter how much it feels like an exception, you do not rescue the Deaf kids.” 

“But—”

“Do not rescue the Deaf kids.”

She stared at me.

“Do not,” I said, “rescue the Deaf kids.”

She huffed out a breath. “Fine.”

“They will ask if they need help. They're very good at that. But they have tricks up their sleeves we can't fucking dream of. They can handle it.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing. Hype Emily up over some project she hands in to you to make her feel all capable and shit. And then stop eavesdropping on her phone calls.”

So that's essentially what I did, but Emily and Justin, inseparable though they may be, are very different, and they each need their own approach. Emily, God love her, is the easy half of the dynamic duo. I found the most hideous inspirational kitten picture I could find, this little gray thing with a cape and “You can do it!” at the bottom, and sent it to her. She was in my office in under a minute.

 **What the fuck,** she said.

I grinned.

**That's the worst thing I've ever seen.**

**You don't appreciate my support?**

**Support for what?**

I shrugged.

**It's abysmal. I like kittens, you know. Why are you trying to make me hate kittens?**

I looked at her with as much sincerity as I could possibly manage. **Because I love you and I want you to feel encouraged.**

 **I'm going to vomit,** she said.

I grinned. **Not in my office.**

**Can I get back to work now?**

**Yes! Newly invigorated with the kind of confidence you can only get from the encouragement of a supportive boss.**

**Whatever helps you sleep at night, old man,** she said, but there was a strut when she left the room and both of us knew it. Nothing gets Emily amped like the opportunity to scold me.

Justin's more delicate and less fun, but, well, what else is new. I stayed around the kitchen that night while he painted tiny patterns on the white tiles over the oven. He'd been talking about doing it for a while, and the fact that he was suddenly getting a project done was the only sign he was frustrated about something else. He still hadn't said anything about the agency, which was fine. We'd agreed that he couldn't lie to me, not that he had to tell me every damn detail of his day.

He chatted to me kind of aimlessly while he worked, and I couldn't say much back, since he was focused, but I hung out and listened and waited for him to take a break. He pulled back and studied what he'd done. “What do you think?”

 **It's good.** I looked down and signed, very casually—like I said, delicate, delicate— **Hey, did you know that you're amazing and you can do anything?**

Not as fun, like I said, but I do like the way it makes him blush.

A week later, Emily and Justin were working for the agency. I bought myself a tie, gave Emily a raise, and fucked Justin until he cried for mercy.

**

Derek finally came home in mid-June, and after Daphne commandeered him to herself for a weekend we were permitted visiting rights, which, of course, meant that we had a party. We all gathered at Daphne's apartment with just about everyone Derek had ever met, and Justin kissed him and signed to him so fast even I got lost, and Derek grabbed me in a bear hug and I looked around at everyone in the same room and felt myself breathe deeper than I had in months, despite the damn vice grip he had around my lungs. It was like something clicked into place, I don't know.

The party was good. Loud enough to make clubs seem like a quiet night at home, like most Deaf parties are, and definitely packed with more straight people than I think any event requires, but good. Gwen was there, and she and Emily were all over each other to the point that I eventually started playing bartender so I could water down Emily's drinks, because as much as I appreciate public sex she's about ninety pounds soaking wet and was already sloppy as fuck an hour into the shindig. Justin wasn't feeling great in a very mild sort of way, so he kept drifting over to me. It was a humid summer, even by New York standards, and his hair was longer then and starting to curl and I couldn't stop touching it whenever he was close.

Derek came over at one point and made a drink and drummed on my arm. **Justin looks good.**

**Yeah, he's had a good couple of months. Hands off, though. He's taken.**

**Hilarious. You know I think your signing improved while I was gone.**

**Fuck off. So was it everything you dreamed of and more?** I asked. **Vital to your philosophical development? Are you ready to climb up on a mountain and tell people the meaning of life?**

**Not yet, but I think I gained ten pounds on olive oil alone.**

**So, six on one hand...**

**Exactly.** He looked across the room, and I followed his gaze over to Daphne.

I waved for his attention. **She really is beautiful,** I said.

**Oh, God, yeah.**

**And a doctor.** I shook my head a little. **You are _really_ dating up.**

 **Shut up, I don't think she's realized.** But he seemed kind of sad.

I tasted the drink he'd made, confiscated that shit immediately, and fixed him something actually palatable, or did the best I could do with the awful cheap shit Daphne buys. I need to start stocking their bars if I'm going to keep hanging around their apartments. I nudged him and handed it over.

He sighed. **It's been different. Since I've been back.**

**Different how?**

**It's like we're new again,** he said. **Just kind of awkward and...kind of formal? I don't know. We were in such a great place and I'm worried I threw it away for a trip that was nice and all but...it was a trip.**

 **You've been apart for a while,** I said. **I think it's natural for things to be a little uncomfortable.**

**So what do I do?**

**Uh...remind her of stuff the two of you loved before you left. Take her to the same places, do the same things. Once things start to feel familiar again you'll be fine.**

He narrowed his eyes. **You're just making that up, aren't you?**

**Yeah, but if this works I'm going to give this advice to dozens of people. You're my focus group.**

**As if you know a dozen people.**

**I know a hundred people.**

**Fuck, a hundred?**

**I'm saying.**

**Were you and Justin like that after he lived in L.A.? Kind of uncomfortable at first?**

I choked on a laugh. **Me and Justin? No. Me and Justin have never been uncomfortable. But I've read about it in books.**

 **What have you read about?** Justin asked, appearing beside me. I hooked a arm around his neck and kissed him.

 **Relationship problems,** Derek said.

Justin said, **Ooh, what are those?** I snickered. No one, literally no one, can jump in on a bit like Justin.

Derek said, **God, you two are annoying.**

I looked over at the couch. **Okay, I'm going to get Emily some water.** I looked Justin up and down. **Mmm, wow.**

**I know.**

**You good?**

**I'm good.**

Derek groaned. **You two are adorable and I'm destroyed by it.**

I filled a cup with water and clapped my hand on Derek's shoulder. **She's amazing, and you treat her like she's amazing. That trumps a lot. You'll be fine.**

Derek said, **On behalf of straight people everywhere—**

**Don't.**

**Thank you for your service,** Derek said.

**Stop.**

**Your certificate is in the mail,** Justin said. **It will be on your gravestone. Brian Kinney. Loving father. Adequate partner. Advancer of heterosexuality.**

Like I said. No one commits to a bit faster.

I raised an eyebrow at him. **Adequate?**

He shrugged sadly.

**Adequate.**

**Don't look at me, I didn't write your gravestone. You promised you'd kill me first, remember?I'm long gone.**

**Justin Taylor,** I said. **Brilliant artist. Fantastic lay. Fucking asshole.**

**Adequate partner! You forgot adequate partner?**

**Did I, though?** I said, backing out of the kitchen, and I grinned at the look on his face.

 **For the life of me I don't know how you found _two_ people to put up with you,** I saw Derek tell Justin.

I laughed to myself and force-fed Emily some water.

**

So all those stories are little variations on a theme, and the whole summary happened about a month after the party. We were both stuck at home on a Saturday night because there was this vicious thunderstorm happening, and the rain beating against the windows sounded like someone running. Justin wasn't feeling great anyway, was medicated to the gills to keep a migraine at bay. I was stretched out in the bay window while he sketched me. The thunder was loud as hell, and I kept bugging Justin asking if he could hear it. He gets nothing at any sort of high-frequency, but sometimes he'll get a bit of something low and loud. He kept saying no, and then there was this clap right overhead and he jumped and I cracked up.

 **You okay?** I said.

“Jesus,” he said, his hand on his chest. “I don't know how long it's been since I last heard something.”

**Weird?**

“So weird. You really walk around doing that all the time?”

**Yeah, I'm great at it.**

**So impressive.**

Justin kept drawing, and I stretched and looked out the window and noticed the streetlamps were flickering. I didn't think much of it, and there was a low whine of our appliances shutting down, and the whole apartment was plunged into darkness. The kind of darkness you don't usually get in New York, because the everything outside, all the buildings around us, all that ambient light, went out too.

“Brian?”

I took my phone out of my pocket and used it to light myself. **Hey.**

“Jesus, I thought it was my fucking eyes again for a second.”

**Is your phone charged?**

“It's plugged in now.”

I used mine to light my way to his nightstand and checked his. Twenty percent. Fantastic. I came back to the couch and handed it to him. **We have candles, right?**

“What?”

I angled my phone back towards myself. **Candles.**

“We should...cabinet in the bathroom. I think there's a flashlight in the kitchen, I'll check.”

Justin came up empty on the flashlight, but he was right about the candles. For once it comes in handy that he's a hopeless romantic. I lit a bunch and set up some kind of altar on the counter between the kitchen and the living room.

 **Feeling seizure-y?** I asked him. His eyes looked dark in the candlelight.

“No.”

**Good. I'm having visions of you knocking these over and setting our fucking apartment on fire.**

Justin studied them and took a step back.

 **Yeah, good call.** I checked my phone again. **Jesus. They're saying this all of Manhattan and Brooklyn and parts of Queens and the Bronx.**

Justin nodded. **Gabriel says it's out where he is.**

**Save your battery, dumbass. Is Daphne at the hospital?**

**Yeah, I think so.**

**So Derek's probably alone at her place.** He didn't technically live there, but he hung out there most of the time because...well, he lived with his mother.

**I can text him.**

**I already did, he's not answering. Neither's Emily.** I studied my phone, then sighed and put into my pocket. **How's your head?**

**It's okay.**

**Okay. I'm gonna go. You stay here.**

**You're going where? It's a blackout. God, can you imagine Nova right now? People must be getting trampled...**

I stood there impatiently while he drifted off wherever he goes when he's imagining stuff. **Justin?**

“Hmm?”

**I'm going. Keep your seizures away from the candles.**

**Wait, where are you going?**

I gave him a look, and he rolled his eyes.

 **You have a savior complex,** he said, which, fine, but I also had a pretty fucking good memory of how freaked out Justin had been when he couldn't see, so if they were in that situation...

 **Save your fucking battery unless there's an emergency,** I told him, and God damn it all, I went out to rescue the Deaf kids.

**

Derek texted me when I was in the cab on the way to his place. _took me forever to find my phone,_ he said. 

_are you at daphne's?_

_yeah. she's at the hospital._

_you have a flashlight?_

_the one on my phone. you'd think a doctor would be prepared for shit._

_all right, i'm on my way._

_oh man seriously?? sweet_

The buzzer to get into Daphne's building was out with the power, so I texted Derek from the sidewalk and waited for him to come on. **Christ, it's freaky in there,** he said. **All the dark hallways and shit.**

 **Have you heard from Emily?** I asked, getting back into the cab I'd kept waiting.

He shook his head. **I know she wasn't feeling well earlier, maybe she's sleeping?**

Great. **Fuck. If she's sick...okay, you should go back to my place, there's candles, we have food, and I'll stay in Queens with her.**

**What?**

**I can't bring her back to the apartment if she's sick, I can't do that to Justin.**

**No, it's just cramps.**

**Oh okay, fantastic. I mean, not for her, but...**

Derek was right about freaky; the whole city was unnaturally dark, and the streets were crammed with people looking for cabs with the subway stations closed. I texted Justin as we went over the bridge, so dark it was almost invisible.

 **He good?** Derek asked.

**Yeah, he's fine. Why the fuck isn't Emily...**

**I'm sure she's fine,** Derek said. **Maybe her phone's dead.**

 **So she's sitting there in the complete dark, alone? That's not fine.** I breathed out and rolled my neck in a circle.

 **You need to take some of those nice drugs Justin has,** Derek said.

**Yeah, yeah, shut it.**

Emily's block was even darker than our street in Manhattan. Her buzzer was out too, but Derek had a key. We rang Emily's doorbell an idiotic six times before it occurred to us that it wouldn't be lighting up in there, so Derek unlocked the door and we swung the lights of our phone around the kitchen and living room. Nothing.

Derek turned his light on himself. **Maybe she's not here?**

**I kind of hope not, otherwise we're about to scare the shit out of her. She doesn't have a gun, does she?**

**Did you just ask me if Emily has a gun? Emily St. Boroughs?**

**Yeah, okay.**

We bounced the lights off whatever we could and stomped our feet and basically did whatever the hell we could to alert her we were there. I heard movement in her bedroom and grabbed Derek's arm and nodded to the bedroom door, where Emily suddenly appeared holding her bedside lamp like a weapon. Derek pointed his light at me, I pointed mine at us, and she dropped the lamp and breathed out, leaning against her doorway.

 **Jesus _fucking_ Christ!** she said. **Scared me to death.**

Derek said, **You're going to fight off intruders with a lamp? That's the best you can do?**

**No, I have a bat, but I was _hoping_ it was Brian or Justin and didn't want to give them some fucking PTSD spiral—**

**Yeah, team lamp,** I said. **You can do a lot with a lamp.** I went over and gave her a hug. **Why didn't you answer your phone?**

**It's dead. I was just going to sit here in the dark until it got light. Or I died.**

**Come do that at my apartment instead. Get whatever shit you need for a few days.** I handed her my phone. **Here.**

**No, I'm scared. Come with me.**

**Yeah, okay.**

**

Half an hour later I was ushering them both into the apartment. Justin was at the stove making hot chocolate, and I cupped the back of his neck and kissed him. 

I looked at the crease between his eyes. **Your head hurts,** I said, small.

**Just a little.**

**Go sit, I've got this.**

Emily went with him, but Derek stayed in the kitchen and got mugs out. I took them from him and nudged him towards the living room. **Go sit with them.**

**Why?**

**Just...sit on the couch with Emily and Justin.**

He shrugged and went and sat with them, slinging an arm over Emily's shoulders. I brought the hot chocolate out to them and checked my watch. **Okay, you need meds,** I said to Justin, and pointed at Emily. **And you need something, is aspirin okay, we don't have Tylenol...** I looked back at Justin. **I need to get you a fan or something.**

 **You need to relax,** he said to me.

**Our air conditioner's out and you have seizures when you get hot.**

**Brian,** he said gently. **Take a breath. Look at us.**

So I did. I sat in the chair and looked at them flickering in the candlelight, perfectly arranged on the couch, all of them safe and happy and in one place, and...okay.

 **What is with him?** Derek said. 

**It's because we're Deaf,** Emily says. **He thinks he has to protect us.**

 **Then why didn't he get Gabriel?** Derek said. 

**Gabriel's fine, Justin checked on him,** I said, but they ignored me. Justin just watched me, a little bit of a smile on his face. He was radiant.

 **Okay, it's because we're young, then,** Emily said.

Derek said, **No, he didn't get Daphne.**

 **Daphne's at work,** I said.

Emily shook her head and laughed. **It's because we're young _and_ Deaf. That's it.**

 **So, what, we're incompetent?** Derek said.

 **No, we're like Justin,** she said. **We're his little extensions of Justin.**

I rolled my eyes. **Drink your fucking hot chocolate.**

 **We give him all the credit for the polyamory thing, meanwhile you're fucking raising three of him,** Emily said.

**I'm not raising anyone, lamp-girl. I just...I like you all in one place.**

She giggled. **You love him too much for just one person, you have to go spreading it around and shit.**

Justin watched me.

 **We're going to get new friends, okay?** I said to him, and his eyes glittered over the rim of his mug.


End file.
